(3) Sarnia vs (6) Windsor
Tale of the Tape
Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds 55-7-3-3
Head Coach
Drew Bannister (3rd Season)
Team Leaders
Morgan Frost finished 2nd in the league with 112 points in 67 games. He led all OHLers in 5on5 points and finsihed the year by tying the OHL record as a +70.
Taylor Raddysh picked up 39 points in 28 games with the Greyhounds and brings OHL title expierience to the roster. He will be looking to make his 3rd OHL finals appearence in his career and will look to pick up his 2nd title.
Mac Hollowell finished the year with 56 points in 63 games this year. I really could have talked about a whole host of their dmen whether it be Timmins, Sandin or Hollowell. Mac really took a big leap this year and his play with Rasmus Sandin on the Hounds 2nd power play unit really co-incides with this team taking off as that unit is just as dangerous as the first unit lead by Frost, Raddysh, Katchouk and Timmins.
Playoff Expierience
This Greyhounds Roster has 309 games of OHL playoff expierience. 2 Players Tim Gettinger and Hayden Verbeek were on the Hounds WCFs team from 3 years ago. Taylor Raddysh and Jordan Sambrook won OHL titles with Erie last year and a handful of players were on each of the last 2 playoff squads for the Greyhounds.
Scoring Leaders vs Saginaw
Morgan Frost 6G 9A
Taylor Raddysh 7G 5A
Barret Hayton 1G 8A
Boris Katchouk 3G 5A
Jack Kopacka 4G 4A
Tim Gettinger 3G 5A
Team Averages
Goals Per Game 317 (1st in west) 4.66
Goals Allowed Per game 186 (1st in west) 2.74
Power Play 24.8%
Penalty Kill 82.0%
Special Teams Plus Minus: +36
Age: 18.33yrs (9th)
Height: 183.67 (14th)
Weight 83.50 (7th)
What to Watch for
The Good News? The last 2 times the Greyhounds have made it to the Western Conference finals they opened up with a 4 game sweep of the Spirit. The Bad News? That is as far as the Greyhounds made it on each of those trips.
Matthew Villalta and Tyler Johnson split the season series vs the Spirit. In his 4 games against Saginaw Villalta had a sparkling Save Percentage of .938%
Saginaw Spirit 29-30-9-0
Head Coach
Troy Smith (1st season)
Team Leaders
Mason Kohn finished with 49 points in 54 games after coming over from Oshawa in a steal of a deal. He will need to have a big series if the Spirit are to keep this close.
Marcus Crawford the OA leader of the Spirit finished off his OHL career with 53 points in 68 games. Of his 13 goals 5 were game winners.
Blade Jenkins finished with 44 points in 68 games in his first OHL season. He only picked up 5 points on the power play so there is plenty of room for growth if he can start clicking on the man advantage.
Playoff Expierience
The Saginaw Spirit only have 72 games of playoff expierience on their roster. Leading the way is Mason Kohn with 26 games. Daniel Vertiy has 11 games under his belt and those are the only 2 on the team who have won a playoff series.
Scoring Leaders vs SSM
Keaton Middleton 0G 5A
Mason Kohn 0G 4A
Damian Giroux 3G 1 A
Ryan Stepien 2G 2A
Team Averages
Goals Per Game 196 (9th in west) 2.88
Goals Allowed Pergame 238 (6th in west) 3.5
Power Play: 14.7%
Penalty Kill: 78.8%
Special Teams PlusMinus: -16
Age 17.81 (18th)
Height 184.31 (8th)
Weight 82.69 (12th)
What to Watch for
This is the 3rd youngest roster in the OHL and is over matched from top to bottom against these Hounds. They dont have the goaltending to steal a game on paper but this should be a good learning experience for this young team as they look to make the jump for next year and ultimately challenge for a Western Conference title in 2 years.
The Spirit have the worst special teams of any team to make the playoffs. They will be in especially tough with the Greyhounds who have one of the top PPs and PKs and led the league in short handed goals for the 2nd consecutive season.
Season Series
Sault Ste. Marie 7-0-1
Saginaw Spirit 1-6-1
Playoff History
These teams have met 3 times in the playoffs with the Greyhounds winning each time. The Greyhounds hold a 12-2 record in those games and have won the last 9 playoff games these two teams have played
Series Schedule
Game 1, Fri., March 23 at Sault Ste. Marie – 7:07 p.m.
Game 2, Sun., March 25 at Sault Ste. Marie – 3:00 p.m.
Game 3, Mon., March 26 at Saginaw – 7:05 p.m.
Game 4, Wed., March 28 at Saginaw – 7:05 p.m.
Game 5, Fri., March 30 at Sault Ste. Marie – 7:07 p.m.
Game 6, Sat., March 31 at Saginaw – 7:05 p.m.
Game 7, Mon., April 2 at Sault Ste. Marie – 7:07 p.m.
Prediction
Saginaw is a young team with average goaltending and are 2 years away from being contenders in the West. The Greyhounds will play keep away from them and slowly pick them apart. Sounds like Spirit forward Brady Gilmour is doubtful for the series which makes an almost impossible task that much harder.
Greyhounds in 4
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